“Jeg er utroligt glad for at modtage denne pris blandt så mange stærke artikler i et meget anerkendt tidsskrift. West European Politics er et af mine favorittidsskrifter, og prisen viser mig, at min forskning bliver bemærket og brugt af mine peers,” siger lektor i statskundskab Henrik Bech Seeberg på Aarhus BSS om at modtage prisen.

Der er tale om en såkaldt Gordon Smith and Vincent Wright Memorial Prize på 250 pund, som tidsskriftet West European Politics uddeler to af hvert år. Prisen får Henrik Bech Seeberg for sin artikel ”Issue ownership attack: How a political party can counteract a rival’s issue ownership”, som handler om, hvad partier kan gøre for at påvirke vælgernes holdninger til konkurrerende partier med emneejerskab.

Artiklen kan læses i sin helhed på tidsskriftet West European Politics’ hjemmeside.

Her er et kort sammendrag af artiklen:
A central part of representative democracy is that voters evaluate political parties based on how competently they handle issues, so-called ‘issue ownership’. Since issue ownership is a central ingredient in the vote choice, rival parties often try to influence how voters evaluate a competing party. This is an issue ownership attack. However, despite intense scholarly interest in issue ownership, the understanding of how parties shape issue ownership is very limited. Therefore a new theoretical model is tested here to understand issue ownership attack. Using several survey experiments, the analysis shows that a mainstream party can counteract another mainstream party’s issue ownership by reframing the issue and by blaming the party for its performance, but not by changing its own position on the issue. Hence, the study not only advances the understanding of issue ownership stability and change but also brings important insights on how parties influence voters.